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Post Info TOPIC: Girls: 30° Torneo Internazionale U18 Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - Grade 2 (Week 18)
murray_2k9


Challenger qualifying

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Girls: 30° Torneo Internazionale U18 Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - Grade 2 (Week 18)
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 I have never suggested anywhere that junior success is a guarantee of senior success, nor would I ever. Im sure all posters here are aware of the likes of Jade Curtis, Hannah James, Marcus Willis - all much better juniors than seniors. But you only have to look at the list of junior grand slam winners from the last ten years, girls and boys and its obvious that the top juniors are often successful seniors - not always to the same extent, of course and this is because they're good players. This IS NOT due to funding alone, if it were, the juniors rankings would be dominated by the wealthiest nations / tennis systems. They are not. They are a rather balanced mix from all over the world, how do you justify this? 

I dont doubt that some players do not get the financial support they feel they deserve and there will inevitably be players who suffer because of this. But find me a single sport where this isnt the case? For an athlete to succeed, it takes massive amounts of commitment, financial and otherwise, to realise their dream. That said, there are plenty of examples of poor players doing well. Sharapova often talks about moving to America with a few hundred pound to her name, The Williams Sisters speak of growing up in Compton, Ivanovic of playing in a bombed out swimming pool. Money can only help, it does not buy success. There are so many other factors that come into play with juniors, as Indiana outlines (puberty, education, physical limitations or even just deciding its not for them anymore) that can explain why rankings dont necessarily reflect ability and I think you are only focusing on one small component.

 Where the French and Spanish tennis systems are superior to ours is the sheer numbers that are playing; they have a much better understanding of how to get children interested in tennis (through availability of courts, schemes such as Fete de Mur etc). More players playing has the obvious impact on the rankings. I think Yannick Noah winning the French was a big driving force for French tennis - Mauresmo for example spoke of how he was her inspiration to play tennis in the first place. It ended a GS drout and would have helped generate big investment for French tennis. I question the system though, because it seems frighteningly coincidental that virtually all top French players lack consisntancy. They have the grass roots part nailed, but have yet to produce a player who is consistantly a contender at Grand Slams.

 

 Finally, I think Korriban hit the nail on the head about champions, its amazing how many of the sports champions made big sacrifices and moved away from home at an early age; Murray, Federer, Sharapova. And how many top players achieved success with minimum input from their countries tennis system; Li Na, Serena, Venus. I think you can argue its a bit chicken and egg though - are Heather, Laura and Andy the players they are because of the input from the systems they moved in to, or did they have the right mentality/hunger to win in the first place which drove them to make that scarifice? 

 

 

 

 

 



-- Edited by murray_2k9 on Monday 6th of May 2013 04:18:25 AM



-- Edited by murray_2k9 on Monday 6th of May 2013 04:19:07 AM

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chicken


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RE: Girls: 30� Torneo Internazionale U18 Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - Grade 2 (Week 18)
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The problem in the UK is that the LTA only funds two or three kids in each age group and they give these kids an enormous amount of money. It would be much better to fund a larger ggroup with a smaller amount spreading the money to help more kids ( I'm not talking about matrix funding because this disappears in most cases to coaching establishments) . I have heard our top kids being called spoilt brats, being given too much money etc. If you make a kid feel very special and give them too much it is not helpful, they sometimes can develop an "attitude". The LTA should spread this money to a larger pool and get more kids traveling and competing pushing each other making them more competitive.
The British tennis system does have more money than a lot of countries but a lot of kids do not see this money, it is so expensive to play in the UK compared to other countries. In some countries coaching and court hire is a fraction of the price, here it can cost up to £10 per hour for courts and then coaches want £40 plus per hour. For kids to compete internationally they should be training 20 hours plus a week. Then they have travel costs hotel, flights ,food etc.
Most parents can't keep this up the only option is to send kids off to American university.

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murray_2k9


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RE: Girls: 30° Torneo Internazionale U18 Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy - Grade 2 (Week 18)
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chicken wrote:

The problem in the UK is that the LTA only funds two or three kids in each age group and they give these kids an enormous amount of money. It would be much better to fund a larger ggroup with a smaller amount spreading the money to help more kids ( I'm not talking about matrix funding because this disappears in most cases to coaching establishments) . I have heard our top kids being called spoilt brats, being given too much money etc. If you make a kid feel very special and give them too much it is not helpful, they sometimes can develop an "attitude". The LTA should spread this money to a larger pool and get more kids traveling and competing pushing each other making them more competitive.
The British tennis system does have more money than a lot of countries but a lot of kids do not see this money, it is so expensive to play in the UK compared to other countries. In some countries coaching and court hire is a fraction of the price, here it can cost up to £10 per hour for courts and then coaches want £40 plus per hour. For kids to compete internationally they should be training 20 hours plus a week. Then they have travel costs hotel, flights ,food etc.
Most parents can't keep this up the only option is to send kids off to American university.

 

I completely agree with what you're saying, the attitude HAS to come before the money is splashed. That said the LTA got it horribly wrong when they penalised Broady and Rice for having pictures at a pizza party. We arent trying to breed tennis robots and as long as the attitude is right on court, in the gym and when dealing with their tennis career the occasional social outing with friends is fine. 

Where Britain suffers is that kids dont view tennis as the 'cool' sport for everyone. They see footballers from all walks of life go on to international stardom and not only do this produce lifetime fans, it produces kids who want and believe that they will be elite footballers. In tennis we havent been fortunate to have that sort of mentality and its still very much the 'middle class' sport for rich kids. 



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chicken


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I have noticed some this forum talking about funding and who deserves it - I think funding should be earned and not just given out. Some kids get full Aegon funding and have hardly won anything last year, others are struggling without getting a penny and have produced results, it seems a very unfair system.

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indiana


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Funding is certainly not "just given out". It is very much related to an age vs ranking matrix that the LTA have.

This matrix has been discussed on various occasions, particularly around AEGON funding group decision time.

Many folk feel that the perameters are wrong, particulay say in the few years past junior level when the ranking level required seems to many of us to be too tough. Others feel it is just generally in fact too inflexible.

So, as I say far from funding just subjectively being given out, it is looked at very objectively, probably to be seen to be fair, but possibly too objectively ( or wrong perameters set ) with maybe an unwillingness to look outside the box and consider special circumstances.

To be fair, outside candidates pushed on here for the last round of funding, such as Sam Murray and more particularly Neil Pauffley, have not really pushed on this year. But I still think there is a debate to be had re the funding matrix perameters and flexibility.

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TennisKnowHow


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murray_2k9 wrote:

 I have never suggested anywhere that junior success is a guarantee of senior success, nor would I ever. Im sure all posters here are aware of the likes of Jade Curtis, Hannah James, Marcus Willis - all much better juniors than seniors. But you only have to look at the list of junior grand slam winners from the last ten years, girls and boys and its obvious that the top juniors are often successful seniors - not always to the same extent, of course and this is because they're good players. This IS NOT due to funding alone, if it were, the juniors rankings would be dominated by the wealthiest nations / tennis systems. They are not. They are a rather balanced mix from all over the world, how do you justify this? 

I dont doubt that some players do not get the financial support they feel they deserve and there will inevitably be players who suffer because of this. But find me a single sport where this isnt the case? For an athlete to succeed, it takes massive amounts of commitment, financial and otherwise, to realise their dream. That said, there are plenty of examples of poor players doing well. Sharapova often talks about moving to America with a few hundred pound to her name, The Williams Sisters speak of growing up in Compton, Ivanovic of playing in a bombed out swimming pool. Money can only help, it does not buy success. There are so many other factors that come into play with juniors, as Indiana outlines (puberty, education, physical limitations or even just deciding its not for them anymore) that can explain why rankings dont necessarily reflect ability and I think you are only focusing on one small component.

 Where the French and Spanish tennis systems are superior to ours is the sheer numbers that are playing; they have a much better understanding of how to get children interested in tennis (through availability of courts, schemes such as Fete de Mur etc). More players playing has the obvious impact on the rankings. I think Yannick Noah winning the French was a big driving force for French tennis - Mauresmo for example spoke of how he was her inspiration to play tennis in the first place. It ended a GS drout and would have helped generate big investment for French tennis. I question the system though, because it seems frighteningly coincidental that virtually all top French players lack consisntancy. They have the grass roots part nailed, but have yet to produce a player who is consistantly a contender at Grand Slams.

 

 Finally, I think Korriban hit the nail on the head about champions, its amazing how many of the sports champions made big sacrifices and moved away from home at an early age; Murray, Federer, Sharapova. And how many top players achieved success with minimum input from their countries tennis system; Li Na, Serena, Venus. I think you can argue its a bit chicken and egg though - are Heather, Laura and Andy the players they are because of the input from the systems they moved in to, or did they have the right mentality/hunger to win in the first place which drove them to make that scarifice? 

 

 

 

 

Why is the junior ranking not dominated by the wealthiest nations/tennis systems? Very simple. Without going into details, just because a country is poor doesn't mean there aren't extremely wealthy individuals, families and companies in the country.

If you dig deeper into the details of the players in high echelons of junior ranking you will find that they fall into one of the following categories regardless of national/tennis system wealth:

1.    Funded by their federation (usually based on very subjective measures of talent)

2.    From very wealthy family

3.    Funded by a wealthy individual or company

Of course there are examples of players from poor backgrounds that have/are doing well. Yes, Sharapova might have moved to US with few dollars but she subsequently secured huge funding to develop, similarly with the William sisters and Ivanovic (after moving away from her bombed out swimming pool).

You can work as hard and be as committed all you want. Without access to adequate funding, you are wasting your time, period.

The system in France and Spain is the main "enabler" for the sheer numbers playing. They are superior to ours not only in the sheer numbers playing but more importantly in quality and professionalism.



-- Edited by murray_2k9 on Monday 6th of May 2013 04:18:25 AM



-- Edited by murray_2k9 on Monday 6th of May 2013 04:19:07 AM

 



-- Edited by TennisKnowHow on Tuesday 7th of May 2013 08:08:02 PM

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